How the Obama administration paid J Street to push the Iranian nuclear sellout
The Obama administration through its National Security Council passed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Ploughshares Fund, an NGO that favors allowing Iran to have nuclear weapons. And
the Ploughshares Fund paid J Street over $500,000 to push its agenda last summer. That's what came out over this past weekend.
A group the White House recently identified as a key surrogate in
selling the Iran nuclear deal gave liberal Jewish lobbying organization J
street $576,500 to advocate for the deal.
...
J-Street, a liberal Jewish political action
group, undertook a comprehensive campaign last year to support the
nuclear deal, amid lobbying by Jerusalem and other pro-Israel groups to
convince Congress to block the landmark pact.
Ahead of a crucial congressional vote to either ratify or block the deal, J Street in July 2015 took out a full page advertisement in The New York Times supporting urging Congress to refrain from “sabotaging” the Iranian nuclear agreement.
J Street also created TV ads and built a wesbite to stump for the accord.
The group said called the New York Times ad
was “the latest phase of [our] multimillion dollar campaign to ensure
that the US Congress does not sabotage the nuclear deal.”
The Ploughshares Fund’s mission is to “build a
safe, secure world by developing and investing in initiatives to reduce
and ultimately eliminate the world’s nuclear stockpiles,” one that
dovetails with President Barack Obama’s arms control efforts. But its
behind-the-scenes role advocating for the Iran agreement got more
attention this month after a candid profile of Ben Rhodes, one of the
president’s top foreign policy aides.
Waiting to hear regrets from Senate Democrats over their votes in favor of letting Iran become a nuclear power.
Here are some more Ploughshares donees.
The Arms Control Association got $282,500; the
Brookings Institution, $225,000; and the Atlantic Council, $182,500.
They received money for Iran-related analysis, briefings and media
outreach, and non-Iran nuclear work.
Other groups, less directly defined by their independent nuclear expertise, also secured grants.
More than $281,000 went to the National Iranian American Council.
Princeton University got $70,000 to support
former Iranian ambassador and nuclear spokesman Seyed Hossein
Mousavian’s “analysis, publications and policymaker engagement on the
range of elements involved with the negotiated settlement of Iran’s
nuclear program.”
The Ploughshares grant to NPR supported
“national security reporting that emphasizes the themes of US nuclear
weapons policy and budgets, Iran’s nuclear program, international
nuclear security topics and US policy toward nuclear security,”
according to Ploughshares’ 2015 annual report, recently published
online.
Oh yeah, and NPR got $100,000 too. Because government funding isn't enough.
There's much more -
read the whole thing.
The self-hating Jews at Saudi and Iranian funded J Street are
quite proud of their role in selling out Israel.
J Street didn’t deny receiving the funds and
said it “acted in order to advance the nuclear deal with Iran out of
faith that it was an important deal, that it had a great contribution
also to the security of Israel.”
“(This) faith is shared by us as well as many
sources, both in the American government and in the Israeli security
establishment, as well as among the Jewish public in the US, most of
whom supported the nuclear deal,” the group said in a press release on
Sunday.
“The nuclear deal with Iran has blocked Iran’s
pathways to a nuclear weapon for the coming years,”said J Street,
adding “we are proud of the activities of the organization to advance
the nuclear deal between the world powers and Iran, a deal that we
believe is of the utmost importance for the security of the state of
Israel.”
Among those J Street cites as Israeli supporters of the deal is
pathological liar Ami Ayalon. The endorsements of the deal have already been proven false.
One day, this will all be part of Obama's legacy - along with his infesting American politics with sleaze.
#ThanksObama. You mamzer.
Labels: Ami Ayalon, Barack Hussein Obama, Ben Rhodes, Ephraim HaLevy, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, J Street, Ploughshares Fund, pro-Israel pro-peace
Marie Harf and the Washington Post lie about Israeli support for Iran deal
Some of you may have seen this tweet by former State Department spokescritter Marie Harf, and the underlying article from the Washington Post, last week.
There's one small problem:
Harf and the Washington Post lied.
Tharoor first mentions Ami Ayalon, a former head of the Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service, and links to a Daily Beast piece entitled "Ex-Intel Chief: Iran Deal Good for Israel."
Unfortunately for Tharoor (and
for Daily Beast commentator Jonathan Alter), Ayalon, who begrudgingly
supports the deal because it is "the best plan currently on the table"
and because he believes there are no available alternatives, nonetheless
has said in no uncertain terms, "I think the deal is bad. It's not good."
Tharoor then cites former intelligence chief Efraim Halevy, but strangely links to an Op-Ed Halevy wrote after a framework agreement was finalized in Lausanne last April but before the details of this final deal were agreed upon in Vienna this month. In a more recent (and thus relevant) Op-Ed,
Halevy described what he sees as several strong points in the agreement
and concludes that it is "important to hold a profound debate in Israel
on whether no agreement is preferable to an agreement which includes
components that are crucial for Israel's security."
He didn't explicitly state which side of the debate he favors,
although there is a sense that leans toward the idea that Israel must
get behind the deal. But like Ayalon, his tepid defense of the deal, if
it is even that, seems to hinge on the idea that this agreement makes
the emergence of any other, better deals unrealistic. "There will be no
other agreement and no other negotiations," Halevy says in his recent
Op-Ed.
What he does not say is that the deal signed in Vienna is, as a whole, "good." In an interview with Israel's Channel 2, he repeats his call for national debate, and paints a much more equivocal picture: "This is not an agreement that is entirely bad,"
Halevy said. "There are positive elements in it." Later, he added
that "this agreement has a number of very good elements for Israel, and
there are elements that are not as good." That quote, with its shades of
gray, might not make for as dramatic a headline as the one chosen by
the Washington Post.
But if equivocation is what the newspaper
has to work with, then equivocation is what it should be capturing in
its headlines—even if that means the piece can't be used by State
Department officials.
Next, Tharoor mentions Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israel's
Military Intelligence branch. It is not clear why: Yadlin, who has
cautioned against panic and excesses on the part of Israel's government,
nonetheless believes, as explained in an interview with Israel's Ynet, "This is not a good deal. This a problematic deal. You also could call it a bad deal."
Tharoor's article intially gave no hint of Yadlin's criticism of the
deal, but sometime later the author snuck in a throw-away
statement noting that Yadlin is "not a fan of the deal." (The stealth
correction appears to violate the newspaper's correction policy.)
Finally, the Washington Post blogger mentions Meir Dagan, another former Mossad chief. It appears, though, that Dagan has not gone on record
one way or another about the nuclear deal finalized in Vienna. (We
looked for any recent statements by him in Hebrew or English, and came
up with nothing. We will of course add an update if we find any relevant
commentary by Dagan from before Tharoor wrote his article.)
Hmmm. I'm shocked. Just totally shocked. (Not!).Labels: Ami Ayalon, Amos Yadlin, Barack Hussein Obama, Ephraim HaLevy, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, John Kerry, Marie Harf, Meir Dagan, P 5+1, Wendy Sherman
One of the darkest days in history
Prime Minister Netanyahu blasted the agreement between the P 5+1 and Iran in a statement to the media today.
Let's go to the videotape.
And he's not the only Israeli politician to
speak out against the deal.
Netanyahu’s hard-line coalition partner, Education Minister Naftali
Bennett added: “Today a terrorist nuclear superpower is born, and it
will go down as one of the darkest days in world history.”
Yeah, but that's only because he's hardline, right? Hmmm. Maybe not.
Israeli social media accounts were filled with images of former
British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, who pushed a policy of
appeasement toward Adolf Hitler and the Nazis on the eve of World War
II.
Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders blasted the deal even as
negotiators in Vienna were still making the announcement and providing
details.
“Israel will defend itself,” Bennett warned, vowing
that military action is still an option for the Jewish State.
Like-minded Israelis feel they are in the crosshairs of a belligerent
enemy, where last week protesters in Tehran were chanting “Death to
Israel!”
Israel’s security cabinet unanimously rejected the Iran
deal, also saying that Israel reserves the right to take action to
protect the state.
But an Israeli attack seems unlikely right now....
Opposition leaders were united in condemning the Iran deal, but they
also called its signing a major diplomatic failure for Netanyahu.
Speaking
on Israel Radio, Efraim Halevy, former head of the Israeli intelligence
agency Mossad, said that perhaps it would have been better to avoid a
head-on clash with Obama and, instead, seek to apply pressure through
more discreet channels and have more of a role in shaping the
negotiations.
Because after all, former Mossad heads have just been
so helpful in helping the government deal with this. Nearly as helpful as Israel's 'loyal opposition.'
Yair Lapid, a top opposition figure and leader of an Israeli
political party, said there is “no daylight” between Israelis in
condemning the Iran deal. But he said Netanyahu bungled the diplomacy.
On
the evening news in Israel, a rough consensus among political
commentators concluded that Netanyahu has been rendered irrelevant,
dismissed by the U.S. administration.
The United States remains
Israel’s closest — and sometimes only — ally in the world, supplying
diplomatic cover and billions of dollars in military aid over the years,
including some of the most sophisticated U.S. arms technology.
In
an interview with Israel’s Army Radio, main opposition leaders Isaac
Herzog and Tzipi Livni both criticized Netanyahu for allowing the deal
to be reached.
“If you go to a deal, as bad as it may be, the way
to minimize its damage is by arriving at an agreement with the U.S. on a
very significant security package,” said Herzog.
And that could still happen after (and when and if) the deal is signed. But Obama wouldn't talk about that before the deal with Iran was done.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Ephraim HaLevy, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iranian nuclear threat, Meir Dagan, Mossad, Naftali Bennett, Tzipi Livni, Yair Lapid, Yitzchak Herzog
Martin Kramer eviscerates the Democrats' Israeli shill, Ephraim Halevy
Former Mossad Director Ephraim Halevy, who has become a professional shill for the Democrats, wrote the following in the
New York Times last week:
Whenever the United States has put serious, sustained pressure on
Israel’s leaders—from the 1950s on—it has come from Republican
presidents, not Democratic ones…. Despite the Republican Party’s shrill
campaign rhetoric on Israel, no Democratic president has ever
strong-armed Israel on any key national security issue.
Martin Kramer strongly disagrees. But instead of taking an example from recent times - from President Obama's and President Clinton's pressure on Israel with respect to the 'Palestinians' - Kramer discusses an example that is older, but in many ways more relevant:
The Kennedy administration's handling of Israel's purported nuclear capability.
Former Mossad head Efraim Halevy likes Barack Obama and dislikes
Mitt Romney. He’s entitled to his opinion. What he isn’t entitled to do
is make categorical statements that do violence to the historical
record.
I’m teaching a graduate course this semester on relations between
Israel and the United States, and one of my purposes in following a
historical approach is to fortify my students against people who
misrepresent the past for some present purpose. Just the other week, we
spent two hours discussing how President John F. Kennedy (yes, a
Democrat) put the screws on Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and
his successor, Levi Eshkol, over Israel’s nuclear end-run. The story has
been told at considerable length elsewhere, most ably by Avner Cohen, Zaki Shalom, Michael Karpin, and Warren Bass,
so I’ll just recap it here. It’s relevant not only as a corrective to
Halevy’s erroneous claim. It’s essential background to the renewed
debate over Israel’s nuclear posture that the Obama administration has helped to prompt.
When Kennedy entered the White House in January 1961, the CIA had
just concluded that the facility under construction in Dimona, with
French assistance, was destined to become a nuclear reactor. U.S.
intelligence had been one to two years behind the curve on the pace of
Israel’s nuclear program, and Kennedy was worried. He had campaigned on a
promise to stop proliferation. In his third debate with Richard Nixon,
he had warned
that “there are indications because of new inventions, that 10, 15, or
20 nations will have a nuclear capacity, including Red China, by the end
of the Presidential office in 1964. This is extremely serious.” The CIA
would soon list Israel right behind China as a potential proliferator.
In May 1961, just months after his inauguration, Kennedy raised the
issue of Dimona with visiting Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion,
and received a boilerplate assurance that the project had a peaceful
purpose. Kennedy and his advisers continued to suspect otherwise, given
the size of the plant. Israel allowed informal visits, but they were far
from thorough, and in May 1963, Kennedy finally decided to press the
issue and insist on regular inspections. He wrote a letter to Ben-Gurion (May 18), warning that an Israeli weapon would throw open the gates of proliferation everywhere:
We are concerned with the disturbing effects on world
stability which would accompany the development of a nuclear weapons
capability by Israel. I cannot imagine that the Arabs would refrain from
turning to the Soviet Union for assistance if Israel were to develop a
nuclear weapons capability—with all the consequences this would hold.
But the problem is much larger than its impact on the Middle East.
Development of a nuclear weapons capability by Israel would almost
certainly lead other larger countries, that have so far refrained from
such development, to feel that they must follow suit.
Then came the threat. Kennedy, noting the ways the United States had
assisted Israel, warned Ben-Gurion that the U.S. commitment to his
country “would be seriously jeopardized in the public opinion in this
country and in the West as a whole if it should be thought that this
Government was unable to obtain reliable information on a subject as
vital to peace as the question of the character of Israel’s efforts in
the nuclear field.” Years later, Yuval Ne’eman, the physicist who helped
Ben-Gurion write his replies, told
a journalist that “Kennedy was writing like a bully. It was brutal.”
Kennedy’s “Scylla and Charybdis-like letter,” writes Zaki Shalom, “made
it absolutely clear that he wanted Israel to accede to his demands
unconditionally and immediately, and a request of this sort from the
pinnacle of American power, in language so blunt, left Israel no space
for maneuvering.”
Read it all.
For a different perspective on Ben Gurion's dealings with Kennedy over the nuclear issue go
here.
The gentleman between Ben Gurion and Kennedy in the picture at the top (which was taken when Kennedy was still a Senator) is Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr.
Labels: Democrats, Ephraim HaLevy, Israeli nuclear capability, Martin Kramer
Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Thursday, October 25.
1) The rich guy bankrolling terrorists
The New York Times reported the other day, Qatar’s Emir Visits Gaza, Pledging $400 Million to Hamas:
The emir of Qatar on Tuesday became the first head of state to visit
the Gaza Strip since Hamas took full control of it in 2007, the latest
step in an ambitious campaign by the tiny Persian Gulf nation to
leverage its outsize pocketbook in support of Islamists across the
region — and one that threatened to widen the rift between rival
Palestinian factions.
This actually is a pretty good way to describe the visit, including a
mention of the Emir's support for Islamists. It's much better than Qatari emir makes historic first visit to Gaza, in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Further, the New York Times reports:
In the West Bank, allies of Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the
Palestinian Authority, who has struggled to preserve his own legitimacy,
warned that the visit set a dangerous precedent of Arab leaders’
embracing Mr. Haniya as a head of state and thus cleaving the
Palestinian people and territory in two. “We call on the Qatari prince
or his representative to visit the West Bank too!” blared a headline on
an editorial in the leading newspaper Al Quds.
The visit signaled just how much the region had changed for Hamas since
the advent of the Arab Spring. Where Egypt under President Hosni Mubarak
once allied with Saudi Arabia to squeeze Hamas by keeping the border
largely closed, Egypt under a new Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi,
opened the crossing to allow the Qatari ruler through. But the visit
also reflected the unique foreign policy that has allowed Qatar to
straddle competing worlds, bankrolling political movements like Hamas,
deemed a terrorist organization by the United States, while maintaining
strong links to Washington.
Seth Mandel describes the dynamic:
It’s fair to say that an underappreciated obstacle to a two-state
solution between Israel and the Palestinians is Hamas’s rule of Gaza.
For such an agreement to take shape, Hamas would have to either consent
or not be in charge of the strip. Though a Hamas-Fatah reconciliation is
unlikely, even if it were to happen, it might only bring about Hamas’s
conquest of the West Bank, thereby doubling, rather than solving, the
problem posed by Hamas. And since Hamas won’t abide a true peace with
Israel, it’s difficult to solve the conflict under current conditions.
With that in mind, those who seek to end the isolation of Hamas are
strengthening the terrorist group’s hand against Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah
and the Palestinian Authority’s main governing structure. In this
scenario, it isn’t Israel that loses nearly as much as Abbas and Salam
Fayyad, in whose corner the West claims to be. So while Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pleads with the international community to
help strengthen the PA’s balance sheet, the opponents of Palestinian
reconciliation are helping Hamas, at Fatah’s expense. The latest such
actor is the government of Qatar.
Will the same people who criticize Israel for not doing enough to help
the Palestinian Authority, now complain about the active efforts to
undermine it by much of the Arab world? Will the same people who
advocated allowing Hamas to participate in elections because it would
moderate them, now concede the disaster that has caused?
The rocket attacks against Israel occurred soon after the Emir's visit,
suggesting that his support emboldened Hamas. Khaled Abu Toameh makes
this point in Why Hamas is confident enough:
Tuesday’s high-profile visit, the first of its kind by the leader of
an Arab country, is seen as a huge political and moral victory for
Hamas. The emir’s visit marks the beginning of the end of years of
isolation for Hamas, particularly in the international arena.
But now that Hamas has the backing – and financial support – of a
wealthy and influential country like Qatar, it can afford to do almost
anything it wants.
Hamas knows that in addition to the backing of Qatar, it also enjoys the
support of many Arabs and Muslims thanks to the Arab Spring, which has
resulted in the rise to power of Islamist groups, most significantly in
Egypt.
(Egypt's role until now and possibly in the future was also mentioned by Barry Rubin.)
The New York Times reported on the attacks in Four Palestinian Militants
Killed in Israeli Airstrikes. (No I can't blame the reporter, but
shouldn't the headline have been "Israel's south under missile attack by
Hamas?")
Palestinian militants fired more than 60 rockets from Gaza into
southern Israel overnight and early Wednesday, hitting several houses
and wounding three Thai workers, two critically, in an Israeli border
community, according to the Israeli military. Israel carried out several
airstrikes against rocket-launching squads, killing four militants,
Palestinian officials said. Three of the four belonged to Hamas, the
Islamic militant group that controls Gaza.
The rocket fire began hours after a landmark visit to Gaza by the emir
of Qatar, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the first head of state to
visit Gaza since Hamas took full control there in 2007. It also came as a
major American-Israeli joint military exercise was under way in Israel,
underlining the volatility in the area at a delicate time before the
American elections, in less than two weeks, and Israeli elections,
scheduled for January.
The Israeli government has come under increasing criticism from
residents of southern Israel who have been forced into protected spaces
and bomb shelters during repeated bouts of cross-border violence.
I don't think that the joint military exercise is relevant here. As
noted above, the emir's visit was likely one of the causes of the Hamas
escalation.
2) And to the north
At Bloomberg News, Ronen Bergman assesses Hezbollah's military strength:
Ever since it forced the Israelis’ panicky retreat from Lebanon in 2000,
Hezbollah has been building up an immense military force, with
firepower that 90 percent of the world’s countries don’t possess,
according to Meir Dagan, the former director of the Mossad, Israel’s
intelligence agency.
The militia’s war doctrine is based on the assumption that Israel is
hypersensitive to civilian casualties, that it cannot wage a protracted
war and that it will always aim for the quickest possible clear-cut
victory. With this in mind, Hezbollah has constructed a complex network
of underground bunkers with the goal of assuring survivability,
redundancy and an ability to maintain a prolonged missile barrage
against Israeli cities.
...
The doctrine proved itself in the war between the two sides in 2006,
when Israel failed in its attempt to liquidate Hezbollah and was once
again forced to withdraw from Lebanon, bruised and bleeding.
3) Halevy vs. the GOP
Former Mossad chief, Efraim Halevy asks Who Threw Israel under the bus?
Despite the Republican Party’s shrill campaign rhetoric on Israel, no
Democratic president has ever strong-armed Israel on any key national
security issue. In the 1956 Suez Crisis, it was a Republican, Dwight D.
Eisenhower, who joined the Soviet Union in forcing Israel’s founding
father, David Ben-Gurion, to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula after a
joint Israeli-British-French attack on Egypt.
In 1991, when Iraqi Scud missiles rained down on Tel Aviv, the
administration of the first President Bush urged Israel not to strike
back so as to preserve the coalition of Arab states fighting Iraq. Prime
Minister Yitzhak Shamir resisted his security chiefs’ recommendation to
retaliate and bowed to American demands as his citizens reached for
their gas masks.
After the war, Mr. Shamir agreed to go to Madrid for a Middle East peace
conference set up by Secretary of State James A. Baker III. Fearful
that Mr. Shamir would be intransigent at the negotiating table, the
White House pressured him by withholding $10 billion in loan guarantees
to Israel, causing us serious economic problems. The eventual result was
Mr. Shamir’s political downfall. The man who had saved Mr. Bush’s grand
coalition against Saddam Hussein in 1991 was “thrown under the bus.”
I don't think that a single one of Halevy's examples is wrong. I do think that his examples are highly selective.
Jonathan Tobin responded with Who’s Been Pressuring Israel? Both Parties:
The fallacy here is that Halevy cites this in order to refute Mitt
Romney’s charge that President Obama has repeatedly thrown Israel “under
the bus.” In doing so he chooses to ignore the many instances of
pressure from Democrats. Indeed, just as every Republican occupant of
the White House has some blots on his ledger with regard to Israel, the
same is true of almost every Democrat dating back to Harry Truman. Yet
what’s truly odd about the piece, and causes me to question the judgment
not only of the Times editors that chose to publish it but those
liberals circulating the article around the Internet today as if it was a
damning refutation of Romney’s allegations, is that none of this stuff
about past Republicans or Democrats has anything to do with Obama. Based
on the tone of the last debate, the president seems quite anxious to
demonstrate his pro-Israel bona fides to wavering Jewish voters in
Florida and Ohio. Those who care about Israel will judge him on his
record, but it mystifies me as to why anyone’s vote would be influenced
by unhappy memories of Ike or the Bushes.
Labels: Campaign 2012, Egypt, Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, Emir of Qatar, Ephraim HaLevy, Hamas, Hamas rockets, Hezbullah, Middle East Media Sampler, Mohammed Morsy, Palestinian Authority, Qatar, Soccer Dad
HaLevy criticizes Romney for giving Iran a deadline
In 2007, long before
he went totally off the left rail, former Mossad director Ephraim HaLevy warned that World War III has begun and
an Islamic nuclear weapon is likely. Now that the war is about to reach a crucial point - the development of an Iranian nuclear weapon - HaLevy, who
endorsed Obama and then denied it in 2008, criticizes Republican challenger Mitt Romney for pointing out that
Emperor Obama has no clothes (Hat Tip:
Memeorandum).
Efraim Halevy, who was the director of the Mossad in the early 2000s and later the head of Israel's National Security Council, told HuffPost that by forecasting his military intentions -- and claiming that Obama would not act in the same way -- Romney is effectively "telling the Iranians, 'You better be quick about it.'"
"If I'm sitting here in the month of March 2012 reading this, and I'm an Iranian leader, what do I understand? I have nine more months to run as fast as I can because this is going to be terrible if the other guys get in," Halevy said.
In the op-ed, published Tuesday in the Washington Post, Romney described Obama as "America’s most feckless president since Carter" and said his rhetoric on Iran "has not been matched by an effective policy."
If he took office, Romney would take aggressive action that Obama was incapable or unwilling to do, Romney promised: I will take every measure necessary to check the evil regime of the ayatollahs. Until Iran ceases its nuclear-bomb program, I will press for ever-tightening sanctions, acting with other countries if we can but alone if we must. I will speak out on behalf of the cause of democracy in Iran and support Iranian dissidents who are fighting for their freedom. I will make clear that America’s commitment to Israel’s security and survival is absolute. I will demonstrate our commitment to the world by making Jerusalem the destination of my first foreign trip.
Most important, I will buttress my diplomacy with a military option that will persuade the ayatollahs to abandon their nuclear ambitions. Only when they understand that at the end of that road lies not nuclear weapons but ruin will there be a real chance for a peaceful resolution.
To Halevy, this read as a clear message to the Iranians to expedite their nuclear efforts.
"This means to an Iranian, if you will wait until another few months and there is a change in the White House, then maybe there will be trouble, so the lesson is, Let's redouble our efforts to do it as quickly as we can," Halevy said. "In the effort to demolish the president he is making the situation worse."
Does HaLevy think that the Iranians are stupid? Anyone who has watched the US Republican campaign understands that with the exception of Ron Paul (who, thank God, is unlikely to win), any Republican President is going to have a radically different policy on Iran than Obama - or at least claims that they will. Does HaLevy propose that the candidates not talk about it and leave the floor to Obama? Sorry, but unlike Israel, candidates actually discuss issues in US elections, and they criticize the incumbent. It's the price of a real democracy (if only we had one too...).
I guarantee you that the Iranians have figured out that if Obama loses they will face stronger opposition to their nuclear weapons program. And they just might be waiting for November 7 to announce a new breakthrough as a result.
But of course, HaLevy goes on to deny that he's playing politics. That reminds me of the Jewish organizations that wanted Israel
not to be a campaign issue because it was one that the Republicans were exploiting. Sorry - it didn't work then, it won't work now, and it shouldn't work ever.
So keep talking Mitt Romney and the other Republican candidates. Let no one think that you're going to continue Obama's fecklessness on Iran or anything else.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Campaign 2012, Ephraim HaLevy, Iranian nuclear threat, Mitt Romney
A former Mossad director who gets it
Lately, we've had a lot of nonsensical statements about Iran and other matters from former Mossad directors
Meir Dagan and
Ephraim HaLevy. By comparison, former Mossad director Danny Yatom (pictured) is a breath of fresh air. Yatom has it straight: The fallout from a strike against Iran can
never be
worse than a nuclear Iran.
“There is a big argument over whether to attack Iran or not,” Yatom said. “The argument is legitimate. Some say Israel will pay a high price, no matter who does the attacking.”
“As difficult a price it may be, and even if those predicting apocalyptic results are correct – and I don’t think they are – this is still not as bad as the threat of an Iranian nuclear bomb,” he argued.
Israel can’t afford to find itself in the position of having “to wake up every morning and ask, ‘Will they go crazy and throw a bomb on us or not?’” Yatom said, adding that “the damage that an Iranian nuclear bomb can cause is so great.”
It was impossible to stake the nation’s security on predictions by those who claim a nuclear Iran can be deterred, and that the Iranian regime would not launch a nuclear attack, he said.
Yatom acknowledged that rocket attacks would likely ensue from Lebanon and Gaza following a strike, but added that Israel’s response would be “so painful and crushing that rockets will come to an end.”
“Civilian facilities and infrastructures in Lebanon and Gaza will be hit. Innocent civilians could be hurt. But the barrage of rockets will no longer be falling over our heads,” he added.
The world did not have much time left to act on Iran, the former Mossad head warned, adding that “there is an evaluation that they crossed the red line. They have the knowledge to make the bomb. All that is needed now is the decision to do it... The world has a year, probably less.”
He also doubted that sanctions would be effective.
Addressing the option of targeting Iran with covert operations, Yatom said that whether or not Israel was linked to such acts, they “won’t stop Iran. They either will have the bomb or not. I think force will have to be used. I don’t think Israel should lead. This is a world problem... [But] should the world stand on the sidelines, Israel will be fully entitled to use its natural right to self-defense.”
I've noted before that Danny Yatom is a
straight shooter, whether or not you agree with him. And he's right about this. We Israelis have to honestly evaluate our reality and react accordingly.
Labels: Danny Yatom, Ephraim HaLevy, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, Meir Dagan, Mossad
Idiot: Soldiers not listening to women singing greater danger than Iran
Former Mossad director Ephraim HaLevy has met the true danger to Israel and it is
the Iranian nuclear threat religious IDF soldiers who won't listen to women sing.
"When I was in Bnei Akiva, there were boys and girls [mixed]. Were we not religious? Were the rabbis then not religious? What happened to us?" he asked, speaking at a military academy meeting commemorating 130 fallen soldiers.
"Thousands of children are born to parents who immigrated to the state and were told that they are Jews, and here the religious authorities decided that they aren't Jews. A generation grew up here without personal status," he said.
Last month, Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yona Metzger said in a religious ruling that the IDF must ensure that religious soldiers are not forced to listen to performances by female singers.
The statement came after an incident in which nine officer cadets left an army event involving a performance by female soldiers, and some subsequently refused to return after their unit commander ordered them to do so. Four of the soldiers were expelled from the Officers Training School – better known as Bahd 1 – after refusing to apologize for the incident.
We've had a lot of this here lately. Male soldiers not listening to female singers is straight halacha (Jewish law), particularly when it's a live (not taped) performance and there's a
female singing solo. Is this really the greatest danger to Israel - that IDF soldiers don't want to listen to female singers?
Over the last 20 years or so, a split has been developing in the national religious community. Parts of the community are moving to the right religiously, and are acting more and more like the Haredim in terms of insisting on stringent halachic observance. HaLevy is one of those resisting that trend. This past week, there was a series of features on Israel Radio's morning drive time program on why the national religious community is 'becoming so religious' by insisting on things like separate classes for boys and girls.
But what really bothers the
branja is that many of these national religious soldiers are consulting with their rabbis when they can, and then deciding how they will behave in the army. That can lead to all kinds of 'terrible' things - like refusing orders to expel Jews from their homes, insisting on a higher standard of Kashruth in the army, and insisting on more time for prayers and Torah study, at least during non-emergency situations.
The IDF officers' corps is about 40% religious today. If anything, that percentage is going up. This bothers a lot of the anti-religious Left
more than anything else in the world, except the fact that most of the western immigration to Israel is coming from religious communities. The IDF has three choices: It can work with the officer corps it has, it can try to recruit other officers (an endeavor at which it has been largely unsuccessful), or it can surrender to our real enemies. Under the circumstances, I would say that the last thing that's worth a fight is forcing religious soldiers in an officers' training course to sit through a female soloist.
Labels: Ephraim HaLevy, IDF, Kol Isha
Former Mossad director: No chance of final deal with 'Palestinians'
Former Mossad director Ephraim HaLevy, who in the past has advocated talking to Hamas, has concluded that there is no chance of Israel reaching a final solution with the 'Palestinians,' and therefore he believes that Israel should try to reach an
interim deal.
The chances of realizing an ultimate peace treaty are low, said Halevy, who underscored that even if such a treaty were to be signed, it would take years to implement, and that regime changes on both sides of the divide, as well as in Europe and the United States, would mean that the people who signed the agreement would not be the ones to implement it, as a result of which the agreement would take on a different character and might even be stalled.
Another option was a dual border, which is essentially a political and security border. There was a moderate probability of realizing that option, but Halevy doubted that the weak and divided PA was capable of being a partner to such a process.
Yet another option was a Palestinian state within interim borders, and a special arrangement for Jerusalem. Here again, the probability of realization was characterized as moderate.
“If there is an interim border, the exact delineation will in future be of less gravity to both sides,” said Halevy.
The final option was no borders, on the path to a bi-national state – an option he said was possible, but not desirable to either side.
The team concluded that in this instance, the probability of realization was moderate-to-high, because Israeli governance was weak, and the government had little desire to advance toward an agreement. The PA, it said, is weak and undivided and unable to reach an agreement under the threat of Hamas; and Hamas, which is moderate to powerful, could resort to terrorism to torpedo any agreement.
There is powerful support on the part of both the Israeli and the Palestinian public for two states for two peoples, said Halevy, but there is also distrust on both sides, and settler opposition to evacuation is sufficiently powerful to stymie any agreement.
Halevy did not have a high opinion of the influence of the superpowers, which he said were “strong on statements but weak on power.”
Given the existing circumstances, the best option, according to Halevy, is one of interim borders. It is the most feasible, and would be most acceptable if a commitment were put in writing that this was not the final word, he said. His team believes that the penalty that each side would pay for no solution is so high that any other solution would be preferable.
Read the whole thing.
An interim deal would be suicidal on Israel's part for four reasons. First, because even if the 'Palestinians' agreed to it (a highly unlikely event that HaLevy wishes away in his calculations), they would insist on it having a termination date. Then what? Whenever the interim deal terminates we would be where we are today diplomatically but in a much worse position security-wise.
Second, the 'Palestinians' may not even wait for the deal to terminate to attack us. They may conclude that the borders are sufficiently advantageous to them, and they may succeed in importing enough weapons (just how are we going to stop that in Judea and Samaria, whose terrain is much less hospitable to 'security arrangements' than Gaza's) to decide that the time has come to attack. Or even if they don't go for all-out war, all it would take is an occasional rocket falling on Jerusalem, Tel Aviv or the airport to make life here completely chaotic. Anyone who thinks we're really going to go to war with the 'Palestinians' over a rocket that does anything less than down a loaded commercial jet needs to look at what has happened in Gaza since 2005 despite all the promises that if Hamas shot rockets at us the IDF would go right back in, be unrestrained, etc.
Third, HaLevy assumes that majorities both in Israel and among the 'Palestinians' want a 'two-state solution.' That's incorrect on both sides. Israelis want it until you get down to the nitty gritty of what we would have to give up. The 'Palestinians' don't even go that far. Survey after survey of the 'Palestinians' shows that a 'Palestinian state in the West Bank based on the 1967 borders with agreed changes' (the standard way that 'everyone knows' we're going to resolve the conflict) is not the end of the game for them. They would continue the conflict in a bid to destroy the Jewish state. Under those circumstances, an 'interim solution' would be even more dangerous than a 'permanent' one.
Fourth, the 'Palestinians' will never agree to an interim deal anyway, because they know that an interim deal would be a permanent deal for all the same reasons that HaLevy says a permanent deal is impossible.
And this is without even getting into the elephant in the room named Hamas, and what to do about Gaza and its control of Gaza.
The 'interim solution' is no solution - not even on an interim basis.
Labels: Ephraim HaLevy, final status negotiations, interim borders, Middle East peace process
